g without a family, I am flattered
with these temporary adoptions into a friend's family; I feel a
sort of cousinhood, or uncleship, for the season; I am inducted
into degrees of affinity; and, in the participated socialities of
the little community, I lay down for a brief while my solitary
bachelorship. I carry this humour so far, that I take it unkindly to
be left out, even when a funeral is going on in the house of a dear
friend. But to my subject.--

The union itself had been long settled, but its celebration had been
hitherto deferred, to an almost unreasonable state of suspense in the
lovers, by some invincible prejudices which the bride's father had
unhappily contracted upon the subject of the too early marriages of
females. He has been lecturing any time these five years--for to
that length the courtship has been protracted--upon the propriety of
putting off the solemnity, till the lady should have completed her
five and twentieth year. We all began to be afraid that a suit, which
as yet had abated of none of its ardours, might at last be lingered
on, till passion had time to cool, and love go out in the experiment.
But a little wheedling on the part of his wife, who was by no means
a party to these overstrained notions, joined to some serious
expostulations on that of his friends, who, from the growing
infirmities of the old gentleman, could not promise ourselves many
years' enjoyment of his company, and were anxious to bring matters to
a conclusion during his life-time, at length prevailed; and on Monday
last the daughter of my old friend, Admiral ---- having attained the
_womanly_ age of nineteen, was conducted to the church by her pleasant
cousin J----, who told some few years older.

Before the youthful part of my female readers express their
indignation at the abominable loss of time occasioned to the lovers
by the preposterous notions of my old friend, they will do well to
consider the reluctance which a fond parent naturally feels at parting
with his child. To this unwillingness, I believe, in most cases may
be traced the difference of opinion on this point between child and
parent, whatever pretences of interest or prudence may be held out to
cover it. The hard-heartedness of fathers is a fine theme for romance
writers, a sure and moving topic; but is there not something untender,
to say no more of it, in the hurry which a beloved child is sometimes
in to tear herself from the parental stock, and comm